Where do you need to make a road?
14th August 2022
Hebrews 11:29- 12:2
Contrasted with the All Blacks’ results, didn’t the Kiwi athletes do well at the Commonwealth Games?
A record medal haul got our attention!
The images coming from Birmingham match the description we have in today’s reading:
Athletic competition with people cheering alongside.
What we’ve seen from the Commonwealth Games is the same as the scene described by the writer of Hebrews (perhaps with a bit more Lycra!)
The effort, focus, cheering, celebration…etc.
And one commentator observed that “The Commonwealth Games team of athletes have been inspiring each other in their achievements.”
It’s that encouragement that is described in Hebrews – as an image for our experience of faith.
The writer describes how “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses” (v1)
What a beautiful description.
Let’s linger on this for a moment…
This is beautifully poetic, not mundane.
One could translate it in a more mundane way by saying: ‘The large crowd of spectators’.
That may make the picture immediately accessible to the modern mind, but it misses the deeper level of meaning.
‘Cloud’ not ‘crowd’ helps us imagine a vast number of people (as in our contemporary expression “a sea of faces’)
And ‘cloud of witnesses’ also adds the heavenly dimension.
In the Bible there are those holy moments when God draws near to humanity in a radiant cloud.
Such as happened with Jesus, and three disciples, on the mount of transfiguration.
‘Witnesses’ not ‘spectators’ helps us imagine that these people are more than observers/onlookers.
In the Greek language, the word for “witness” is the same as for “martyr”.
This is a cloud of martyrs – those whose lives show what faith is like in action!
They are not passive but the active and involved and deeply committed.
They are recognised as God’s people.
In the perspective of this Hebrews passage, this cloud of witnesses is on the heavenly side of reality, delighting in the eternal presence of God.
They are those who by faith have already run the race, they have lived and died in the faith, and now watch on as a new generation give their best for Christ and his God. They are not dead and totally extinguished, but are living witnesses.
Not fickle – like some disappointed All Blacks fans
Passion of the ‘Home crowd’
These give us strength as we run the race of faith. Just as contemporary athletes speak of the strength they draw from a home crowd, so we draw strength from our “home crowd”, those who are on the heavenly side of reality. We are not alone; never bereft of the fellowship and encouragement of a shining host of fellow believers.
Among these wonderful witnesses is one extra special one.
“39 Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40since God had provided something better…”
These other witnesses are hailed for their faith.
But Jesus is different.
His triumph over the enemy looks different.
His triumph is an endurance of suffering.
He fulfils the perfect expression of faith in completing the purposes of God.
His is an unbroken and unquestioning faith in his heavenly Father.
· Gethsemene: “not my will but yours” (Mk 14:36)
· Taunting as he goes to his death “come down from the cross, and we’ll believe” (Mk 15:30, 32)
The death of Jesus on the cross was costly, but he endures it as the supreme act of faith – and shares the prize with us!
He embodies faithfulness to the supreme extent that we learn what it is from observing him.
As the ‘pioneer and perfector of our faith’ he is our leader, the one who goes ahead of us, encouraging us to go where he goes.
So, as well as having won the prize – Jesus leads us on in our own race.
In fact, Jesus is like the coach, teaching and showing us all we need to know.
Training us, and warning us about the dangers,
feeding us a remarkable bread and wine for strength.
Leading us onward to where he is.
Whatever the challenges/trials, we are safe when we run after Jesus.
In him we find a love that is not destroyed – it never can be.
We are not alone.
We have Jesus, and others who have found him trustworthy.
Hold onto the vision of what we anticipate.
We do this with an abiding sense of togetherness.
Among the Communion of the Saints we recognise men and women in whose lives the Church as a whole has seen the grace of God powerfully at work.
We give thanks for that grace, and for the wonderful ends to which it shapes a human life.
Togetherness means we are part of this one continuing, living Communion of Saints.
We are included and involved.
We recognise this togetherness in our emphasis here at St John’s on growing faith by living intergenerationally.
This image in Hebrews invites us to see a great expansion of the this intergenerational truth – to include those whom we do not see with our eyes, but who are an encouragement to us nevertheless.